It is alleged that half a million Spanish men, women and children fled to France after the Franco victory.

Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival.

I see mysteries and complications wherever I look, and I have never met a steadily logical person.

After a lifetime of war-watching, I see war as an endemic human disease, and governments are the carriers.

What the trees can do handsomely-greening and flowering, fading and then the falling of leaves-human beings cannot do with dignity, let alone without pain.

The only way I can pay back for what fate and society have handed me is to try, in minor totally useless ways, to make an angry sound against injustice.

All amateur travellers have experienced horror journeys, long or short, sooner or later, one way or another. As a student of disaster, I note that we react alike to our tribulations: frayed and bitter at the time, proud afterwards. Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival.